Roll

@pdavison great to see the launch! I've been using this app for a few weeks now and have been loving it. The product is super simple and minimal, which is always nice. I'm curious to hear what other variations of the product you tried before? Or was the original idea pretty much in this format from day 1?

@pdavison congrats on the launch paul. Excited to start playing with it.

@pdavison i'm a big fan of roll, congrats on the launch! it's become one of the the few products that i use everyday :)

@andrewchen Thanks so much! I really appreciate your being on the beta and giving us so much fantastic feedback along the way. The first version of the product actually auto-shared your photos with your friends as soon as you took them. So it was actually simpler in a sense, and engagement was great, but it was too scary to ever release. At that point we said "Okay - We have 2 things we need to do. (1) Make it NOT scary, and (2) keep it simple. There is still so much we are figuring up, but we're learning a TON and discovering new use cases all the time.

@anamitra Thanks Anamitra! Just added you. :) Excited to hear your feedback!

@itskathuria Wow - thank you so much! We are printing this comment out and framing it.

@pdavison

@rrhoover Thanks! Actually, Roll came out of some work we were doing on Highlight 3.0! With Highlight, our goal has always been to help you learn about the people around you. With Highlight 1.0, our focus was on surfacing mutual friends and interests. With 2.0, we added new bits of context about what the people around you were doing - like whether they were walking or driving, and what music they were listening to. With 3.0, we started thinking “Wouldn’t it be interesting if you could learn about people by seeing the photos they’re taking?” Photos have always been a hugely important part of Highlight, and this had just become technically possible to do with iOS 7. The idea was a bit too crazy to fit into the Highlight product, but it was interesting enough that we kept thinking about it, and eventually decided to prototype it as a separate app. We got a few friends on it and the engagement was really good, so we eventually decided to polish it up and release it. We love Highlight and still deeply believe in the vision behind it, but I think we’re still in the early days of that space! Back in 2012, battery life was an issue. Social norms still have to be established. Hyperlocal distribution is notoriously tricky. It's definitely going to happen, but there is still a lot to figure out!

@rrhoover @pdavison Highlight was ahead of its time. Battery life could not keep up with the app, and this was pre-Tinder where people were not quite conditioned yet to feel comfortable with geo-location sharing. Sonar was another great app like this that would have had more success if it launched today. I actually think Highlight set the stage for apps like Tinder, Happn, etc. Excited to try this out.

@pdavison @andythegiant I agree, it was a little ahead of its time but do you think now (or in the near future) people will be comfortable and want to meet others nearby serendipitously? cc'ing @xsvengoechea from Sonar and @badeen from Tinder.

@pdavison @xsvengoechea @badeen @rrhoover For sure. I think a spring of apps will begin to pop up connecting people with shared mutual hobbies, interests, tastes. I bet @elan_miller also would like to get in on this convo.

@pdavison @badeen @rrhoover @elan_miller @andythegiant I still love the idea of friend serendipity but I think what was missing from our first round of solomoapps was action IRL - i.e., it's great to find others who share similar interests with you, but what do you actually do with that knowledge? Dating and networking are two very actionable next steps when you find shared interests....but what about everyone else? I think we're still early stages in understanding what people want to really connect over, and how.

@chrismessina and this is why we should have a downvote button. #justkidding #maybe

@chrismessina but wait, whut when it's a roflolling picture? omg options choices whattodonext lmao.

@chrismessina haha ... we resisted using "Roll with friends," "Get rolling," or "Ready to roll" anywhere in the app.

@chrismessina @rrhoover I'm in favor of a downvote button. Not in this instance though. But I'd like to see a shake-up.

@chrismessina @pdavison and by resisted he is nicely saying that i made a motion at the board meeting to require the use of "roll with friends" but it did not get approval.

@andrewwarner We couldn't agree more, and that's actually the exact philosophy behind Roll. As you point out, selecting from a traditional grid view feels like work, so most of us just don't do it. Showing photos one at a time might seem inefficient, but we think it makes the experience really fast and focused, and as a result, users end up sharing a lot more. In other words, Roll was not designed to help you pick the top 3 photos of the 40 you took. It's for sharing the other 37 ... and for getting the photos your friends took of you. Thanks for the comment, and excited to hear what you think!

@ninjudd Thanks! Yes, face detection would be awesome, but you just have to be thoughtful about how you do it to avoid privacy issues. It also requires a lot of training data. Re: who is following you, by default, only the friends in your address book are allowed to follow you. If someone else asks to follow you, you'll have to approve their request. You can of course edit your friends list anytime in the settings. :) Thanks again for the question!

@jdbt Yeah, we hear that a lot! A number of people on the beta use the app just with their significant other and they find it works quite well for that. We are hoping to have Android out in the next couple weeks, so stay tuned. Thanks for the feedback on this!